The experts from “finder.com” asked ChatGPT to create a stock portfolio with at least 30 stocks that follows the investment principles of leading funds. The AI portfolio should include companies that are high quality, have low debt, sustainable growth and competitive assets. So the chatbot had to take a few parameters into account for an answer. Although ChatGPT was initially reluctant to name specific stocks and stressed that it could not provide individual investment advice, it was nonetheless quick to cooperate when told it was just a theoretical exercise.

As a result, ChatGPT assembled a hypothetical portfolio of 38 stocks that is quite impressive. The AI portfolio includes well-known companies such as Meta, Microsoft, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Visa, Alphabet, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Amazon, Adobe, Salesforce, Walmart, NVIDIA and Berkshire Hathaway. The performance of ChatGPT’s portfolio is also impressive: within the first two months after its composition on March 6, the basket of shares is up 4.9 percent. Over the same period, the S&P 500 was up only about 3%, while the UK’s most popular funds fared even worse.

To assess the performance of the ChatGPT fund, Finder.com compared its performance over the first eight weeks of hypothetical creation to that of ten popular UK funds that are regularly published on the Interactive Investors website. These funds come from Vanguard, Fidelity and HSBC and primarily have a global investment focus. According to the financial comparison portal, these funds lost an average of 0.8 percent in value in the period under review. That means they significantly underperformed the AI’s stock portfolio. Additionally, ChatGPT outperformed real-world funds 87 percent of the days during the study period. The largest difference between the AI portfolio and the real funds was observed on April 6, when the ChatGPT portfolio was up 4.7 percent while the real funds lost an average of 1.9 percent.

Whether investors should leave their investment decisions to an AI in the future is a complex question. The performance of the ChatGPT fund is undoubtedly remarkable, especially since the AI shouldn’t be making any investment recommendations. It didn’t take the public long to find creative ways to get ChatGPT to help them in areas where it shouldn’t technically be possible, as OpenAI has programmed some mechanisms into ChatGPT to not give such risky advice. However, it probably won’t be long before many people are conducting their own experiments to use AI for financial gain. In fact, a study of 2,000 UK consumers commissioned by the comparison site shows that eight percent of respondents have received financial advice from ChatGPT. Another 19 percent would consider it. Millennials and Generation Z have shown themselves to be more open to AI for financial advice than older generations.

However, while the democratization of AI appears to be revolutionizing the financial industry, it is still being warned that it is still too early for consumers to get carried away with AI when it comes to their own finances. In fact, the majority of survey participants seem to think so too. 35 percent said they don’t want to receive financial advice from the AI at this time, while another 38 percent said they were unsure what ChatGPT even is.

However, while the democratization of AI appears to be revolutionizing the financial industry, it is still being warned that it is still too early for consumers to get carried away with AI when it comes to their own finances. In fact, the majority of survey participants seem to think so too. 35 percent said they don’t want to receive financial advice from the AI at this time, while another 38 percent said they were unsure what ChatGPT even is.